Problems with Allergies or Asthma – Check Your Indoor Air Quality

Say the word pollen in a room full of people and probably about half of them immediately start to cringe and maybe even instinctively reach for a tissue. While there are a lot of great products on the market to relieve or suppress allergies, they do not get to the root of the issue or prevent them. The simple truth is if the allergen isn’t there, it can’t affect you. This goes for people with Asthma also. If what triggers the Asthma isn’t there, an attack probably won’t happen. Let's get something out of the way before the questions start. NO, you cannot eliminate all allergens from your environment unless you want to live in a hermetically sealed chamber for the rest of your life. But what you can do is greatly reduce the number of allergens in your living environment. In previous posts, we have talked a great deal about outdoor air and ventilating your home. On the surface, this might seem counter-intuitive. The outdoor air is where all the allergens are – why would I want to bring that into the home? You would be right in the sense of opening all of the windows and letting the air come into the home when you live next to a field full of ragweed is probably not going to help your cause.

What you do want to do is control the air coming into your home and filter it the best you can. Here is where the HVAC system along with your ventilation and air intake systems come into play. Let's start with the HVAC system. If you have central air, use it, but make sure the air filter is changed regularly and is filtering out the contaminates you need to. Check the type of filter you have. Most air filters will have some type of information on the packaging of what they filter out. Make sure it is removing things like pollen, dust mites, pet dander, and any other allergens or Asthma triggers you might have.

The next item to address is the ventilation of the home. Properly ventilating your bathrooms especially will reduce the growth of mold and mildew. Both of which can trigger allergy or Asthma attacks. Make sure the exhaust fans are being used properly.

Another big area of the home that often gets overlooked is the kitchen. Make sure to use a range hood that is venting to the outdoors. As we have detailed in previous post, the kitchen is one if not the top source of indoor contaminates. Venting these out of the home is the best way to ensure the quality of air inside the home. Smoke is typically a top trigger for people with Asthma. Exhausting it at the source prevents it from entering the living environment. Studies have shown that just using a properly vented range hood when cooking can reduce particulate matter by more than 80% (Dangerous particles so small they can’t be seen).

Finally let’s talk a little about the fresh air coming into the home (also called make-up air). When you vent air outside, you need to bring air into the home. The best way to do this without negatively impacting your air quality is to control it and filter it. As we talked about earlier, opening a door or window definitely brings fresh air in, but it also brings all of the contaminants in the air with it. Utilizing a product like the Air King QFAM or FAS controls the air coming into the home by filtering the air before it reaches the living area. The air passes through an up to MERV16 air filter, which takes out even microscopic allergens. It is the basic principle of keep the good stuff in and the bad stuff out. As we said before, this is not a 100% guarantee that you will never have another allergy or Asthma attack, but if it can increase your comfort level and prevent even some of them – isn’t it worth it?

To learn more about Air King’s ventilation and fresh air solutions, visit www.airkinglimited.com.

The Air Filter Debate – Is Too Much Too Much?

Quick, when is the last time you changed the Air Filter of your HVAC system? Second question, do you know that your HVAC system has an Air Filter? Air Filters are a part of our lives. Our cars have them, our HVAC systems have them, dehumidifiers have them and now fans have them.

In previous blogs, we have talked about the importance of bringingfresh air into the home and using a mechanical solution like the Air King QFAM or FAS. Those products also utilize an Air Filter.  The thing with Air Filters is that they need to be replaced on a regular basis. But what should you replace it with? In our pursuit of better air quality, we have adopted the bigger is better philosophy and unfortunately, that is not always the case.

You will see terms such as HEPA or MERV. HEPA stands for High Efficiency Particulate Air, which means that a filter can trap 99.97 percent of particulates that are 0.3 microns. In terms we can all understand, it filters out most of the bad things in the air. MERV stands for Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value. Like the HEPA definition, the MERV rating is how fine of particles the filter is able to remove. The higher the MERV rating that more contaminates the filter will remove. A MERV 8 filter will trap most common household contaminants such as dust, pollen, pet dander and lint. Going up to a MERV 13 will also trap items such as mold spores, car fumes, smoke, bacteria and microscopic allergens. When you go above MERV 14, now you are into filters you are going to find in settings such as a hospital.

So why not always use the highest MERV rating possible? This comes down to airflow. The issue is that the higher the MERV rating, the more it is going to restrict the airflow. The filter is going to trap more, which is good, but it will also need more power to push the air through. This can have a negative effect on your total system. Let's say you have a MERV 8 filter in place but you now want to change that to a MERV 13. You will see a decrease in the amount of air coming through. Some systems have the ability to compensate and increase the airflow. With Air King’s Fresh Air Machines, you have the ability to adjust the speed manually. For systems that do not have the ability to either self or manually adjust, using a higher rated filter could restrict the airflow to a point where the system is no longer working as expected. This could also have longer-term effects on the system as it will have to work harder to move the air.

So what Air Filter should I use? With Air King products that use filters, take a look at what the CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute) setting is at. If it set below the maximum airflow amount, you can utilize a higher MERV filter and adjust the setting. We do highly suggest that you consult an HVAC expert to make sure the correct airflow is still taking place. They will be able to advise you and test the actual airflow.

To learn more about Air King products, visit www.airkinglimited.com

The Air Balancing Act

When you hear Air Balancing you might have pictures of a puff of air trying to stay on a narrow bar without falling off. While that might be something you would see in the comic section, when it comes to your home, Air Balancing is a bit different and more important. The simple explanation is that the amount of air coming into the home needs to match the amount of air going out of the home.

So what air is going out of your home? There is more air leaving your home than you probably realize. Items such as your furnace, water heater, clothes dryer, range hood, and bathroom exhaust fans can all be pulling air out of your home. All of these items provide a pivotal role in the overall comfort and/or indoor air quality of your home so not using them is not an option.

This is where the balancing comes in. As we defined earlier, balancing is making sure the amount of air going out matches the amount coming in. So where do we get the air (referred to as make-up air) to balance everything? This all depends on the construction of you home. Many older homes have what is called natural air infiltration. The rest of the world knows these as drafts. In newer homes, the amount of drafts has been greatly reduced. You might hear the term – tight home. While this helps with the comfort and efficiency of the home it creates an issue with the air balance of the home and it is harder to account for all the air leaving the home. An easy way to balance the air is to leave a door or window open. That works great unless you live in a climate that has temperature changes (like almost all of the United States). There might be a few weeks of the year that this would be a viable option but in the middle of summer in Arizona or the middle of winter in Minnesota, not sure you want to have a window open. This is where mechanical solutions come in. A mechanical solution like the Air King QFAM is set up to bring fresh, filtered air into the home – balancing the amount of air leaving the home. There are air test that can be done to your home to determine how much air is leaving, then the QFAM can be set to deliver the proper amount of air flow to make-up that air providing a safe living environment.

Wait, you used the phrase “safe living environment” does that mean mine is not? Maybe. If a home is too tight and the air leaving is not replaced, you can create a negative pressure inside your home. Air will always find a way to balance itself and can start pulling from things like furnace vents or chimneys. The negative pressure won’t allow them to vent properly and the harmful fumes, gases and contaminates that should be going out of the home could be coming back into the living environment. For these reasons the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), who is a leader in writing codes for indoor air quality standards has included a provision for fresh air (or make-up) air in the latest version of ASHRAE 62.2.

Balancing your home’s air is an important element to your indoor air quality and healthy living. For more simple and effective was to accomplish balanced air, visit the Air King website at www.airkinglimited.com.